Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber (9 December 1868-29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918 for discovering a method for synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases. He was considered the "father of chemical warfare" for developing and weaponizing chlorine during World War I.

Biography
Fritz Haber was born in Breslau, Silesia, Poland (now Wroclaw, Poland) in 1868, and he came from a well-off Jewish family; he later converted to Lutheranism. Rather than follow in his family's dye company business, he decided to pursue a career in chemistry, and he graduated from Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1891. He served as a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe from 1894 to 1911, and he introduced a process of synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases, the "Haber method". During World War I, he was instrumental in the development of non-ballistic use of chemical warfare, and he was present at the first use of chlorine gas at the Second Battle of Ypres in April-May 1915, after which he created a gas mask for Imperial German Army soldiers. Ironically, he won the 1918 Nobel Prize for the Haber method, and he was decorated for his patriotic service. During the Nazi era, his conversion to Lutheranism and his patriotism did not change the fact that he was Jewish, and he was forced to resign from his academic positions and go into exile. He died in Basel, Switzerland in 1934 at the age of 85.